Q&A: Indonesia's parliamentary elections

Heavy security was in place ahead of the elections

More than 170 million Indonesians have voted on 9 April to choose the members of the two houses of parliament.

The 560 seats in the People's Representative Council (lower house) and the 132 seats in the Regional Representatives Council (upper house) were contested by 38 parties.

Why is the election important?

It is only the third general election since the fall of the dictator Suharto and is a test of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's reformist policies.

The outcome will also help decide who will be the next president, as only parties with 20% of seats or 25% of the popular vote may nominate candidates for July's presidential election.

Over 15,000 seats in provincial and local assemblies were also contested.

Who are the parties?

President Susilo's Democrat Party is widely fancied to win the most seats. A recent poll suggested it would corner some 26% of the vote.

The same poll put the main opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle led by former President Megawati Sukarnoputri and Golkar, Suharto's former ruling party in second and third places.

Various surveys have shown that support for the Islamic parties has declined, but suggest that they may retain enough votes to be influential in a coalition government.

The website of the radical Islamist Hizbut-Tahrir Indonesia - which is not taking part in the election - has commented on the increase in the number of businessmen standing for parliament.

Who runs the polls?

Indonesian elections are run by the General Elections Commission (KPU).

The KPU has come under criticism since the start of preparations for the elections. The Coalition of the Election Monitoring Society, an umbrella group for NGOs, has faulted the body for failing to meet schedules and enforcing regulations inconsistently.

The Jakarta Post has reported a warning from the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu) of the potential for rampant vote rigging because of poor supervision in the field.

What are the issues?

The economy, jobs and the country's pervading corruption problem are the main issues.

Although Indonesia's economy is considered unlikely to slide into recession, it has shown worrying signs of slowing down and millions of Indonesians are below the poverty line.

Have there been campaign violations?

The National Police said in March there had been 134 cases of campaign violations, most of which involved damage to campaign tools, including posters.

Other cases included fraud, money politics and campaigning on illegal grounds.

But the financial problems faced by candidates were reported to have led some to extreme solutions; one was caught selling ecstasy, another was involved in illegal logging. In Banten, one election hopeful stole palm fruit, while a desperate candidate in Jakarta was caught red-handed stealing a motorcycle.

All claimed they did it to fund their campaigning.

BBC Monitoringselects and translates news from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages. It is based in Caversham, UK, and has several bureaux abroad.

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